Citizens and Health Care Providers Participate in Sit-Ins, Risk Arrest at Health Insurance Offices in Oover a Dozen US Cities

Almost 700 have signed up to risk arrest as part of a national mobilization to end insurance abuse and win health care for all

WASHINGTON - Citizens and health care providers who are fed up with the state of
our health care system will risk arrest in over a dozen cities this
week and on Thursday, October 15. The sit-ins are part of a national
mobilization to end insurance abuse and build support for real health
care reform - Medicare for All, a single payer plan. The mobilization
involves civil disobedience at insurance company offices in New York,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and other cities. Almost 700
people have already signed up to risk arrest at a health insurance
company office as one of the largest campaigns of nonviolent civil
disobedience since the civil rights movement.

The mobilization was launched last week when 17 people were arrested at an Aetna office in downtown New York City (read New York Times city blog write-up).
Participants in the sit-in wore T-shirts with slogans that read
"Medicare for All" and chanting "patients, not profits!" They linked
arms and sat down in the lobby of the building, demanding that the
reviewers immediately approve all doctor-recommended lifesaving
treatments, holding signs saying "Aetna is the real death panel."

"Hundreds of people die each day because insurance companies deny
them lifesaving care that they need," said Marilena Marchetti, 29, a
resident of Gold Coast, Chicago, who is participating in a sit-in at a
Cigna office in Chicago this week. "I'm willing to put myself on the
line for them. We need Medicare for All, a single payer plan."

The sit-ins are part of the Patients Not Profit campaign of the
Mobilization for Health Care for All. The mobilization was launched by
the organizations Prosperity Agenda, Healthcare-NOW!, and the Center
for the Working Poor. The vast majority of the funding for this
campaign comes from individual supporters and small donors all across the country.

"At this critical juncture in the national health care debate, we
are highlighting deaths and suffering caused by insurance company
denials. In some states 20% of all doctor-approved health care
recommendations are denied by insurance companies. People are dying
because these corporations put profits before patients," said Katie
Robbins of Healthcare-NOW!

Participants in the actions will point out that we need a system
that addresses the real cause of the health care crisis, the insurance
companies.

"As long as the for-profit health insurance companies are still
calling the shots, and are still denying care and coverage to people,
the system is going to continue in a downward spiral," said Ken Bing,
54, a resident of Queens, New York, and a licensed physical therapist
who was arrested at the sit-in in New York last week. "I think Medicare
for All, a single payer plan, is the solution."

Bing has been a physical therapist at a major clinical facility in
Brooklyn, New York, for 20 years. He says that too many times he has
found himself arguing with insurance companies in order to provide the
care that he knows a patient needs.

"On a day-to-day basis, there are barriers being put up between what
our clinical judgment is and what is covered by the insurance company,"
said Bing. "We are the only industrialized democracy that doesn't
provide universal health care. A single-payer plan would save time and
money so we could provide health care for all."

Experts agree that the current health care bill is not helping.

"The Democratic health care bill is a giveaway to the insurance
industry. Tens of millions of Americans will be forced to buy
overpriced insurance, which will result in hundreds of billions in new
annual revenue for the insurance industry," said Kevin Zeese, executive
director of Prosperity Agenda. "A Medicare for All system would cover
all Americans, unlike the Dem proposal which will leave tens of
millions without coverage, and would reduce the cost of health care
immediately saving $400 billion annually in insurance company profits,
executive salaries and bureaucracy."

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Further

On this day 50 years ago, a platoon of U.S. soldiers entered the hamlet of My Lai in South Vietnam and, in hours, massacred 504 unarmed women, children and old men. Over 300 of the victims were younger than 12; the G.I.s also raped many of the women and burned all the homes. Today, with torturers and warmongers on the rise, the horrors of My Lai serve as a grim warning. In America's wars of choice, says one vet, we are all "one step away from My Lai."